Considerations for DMS data

When you use the File Import Wizard to create a template that imports DMS data from a text file, you may need to consider some of the following issues:

  1. By default, the resulting template interprets the values in one row of the text file as one DMS data record.  

If your text file is set up so that data for one DMS data record is found on multiple rows of the text file, you must use the Template Wizard to modify the formulas in the template.

  1. If the template was created to import both SPC and DMS data, then you were able to specify on step 4 of the File Import Wizard the number of features to be imported into SPC.  You were also able to specify whether the subgroup data for these features was found only on one row of the text file or on multiple rows.

By default, the resulting template will only store one DMS data record for each set of SPC features that you specified on step 4.  It will import the DMS data from the first row of text used for one set of SPC features, but will ignore any DMS data on other rows of text used by that set of SPC features.

For example, if your template is designed to import data for three SPC features from three rows of the text file along with DMS data, the template can only store the DMS data record from the first of those rows of data in the text file when it stores all three of the SPC subgroups (one for each feature).  

If your text file contains more than one DMS data record on the rows containing one set of SPC features, you must use the Template Wizard to modify the formulas in the template.

  1. If your text file contains only date stamps but no time stamps, it is possible that several rows of the text file may reference the same combination of standard and date.  However, you can still map this date column from your text file into the Date/Time cell on step 5 of the File Import Wizard.

By default, the resulting template uses the date stamp from your text file and assigns consecutive time stamps to these data records, incrementing the time stamp as it moves through the text file, and data is stored correctly.  

However, if you are importing a large text file, this process of finding the next available time stamp can eventually slow down the process of importing data.  If this causes problems for you, you can use the Template Wizard to modify the formulas in the template.

Here are two suggestions for faster creation of time stamps:

SVar 50 = Date_Format Column CHR 9, CHR 34, 2, "MDY" : 'date' :

NVar 50 = NVar 50 + 1 : 'counter' :

NVar 51 = NVar 50 % 60 : 'seconds' :

NVar 53 = NVar 50 \ 3600 : 'hours' :

NVar 52 = (NVar 50 - (NVar 53 * 3600)) \ 60 : 'minutes' :

CONCAT SVar 50, " ", Format NVar 53, "00", ":", Format NVar 52, "00", ":", Format NVar 51, "00"